Spoilers Post

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

In Which She Has Her Own Bit of Crazy, Too

Season 7, Episode 5The Twist in the Twister

A varied version of a typical
Booth/Bones struggle: he wants to help her, she insists she can do it
on her own. But the fact that she's pregnant with his baby pushes
them both further in their positions: he's even more vigilant about
helping her, this time helping her get up, and she's more insistent
about getting herself up, mostly because of his increased insistence
at helping her but also, I'd speculate, that she wants to prove she
can manage being pregnant on her own, not having anything to do with
Booth but rather because she's so used to being self-sufficient. She
was planning on doing it on her own just a few years ago, after all.

Then the conversation starting with the
ramen. He insists she shouldn't eat it, but she's already planned it
out – she'll have a low-sodium dinner to counteract it, further
showing her self-sufficiency. She goes on to accuse him of his
overprotectiveness in a logical, rational, reasonable fashion, partly
because it is true – of course he's being overprotective, he's
overprotective with her more often than not when she's NOT pregnant,
so with her being pregnant with his child of course he's going to be
over-overprotective. Even when he's trying to say he's not
overprotective, he gets another overprotective comment in there. But
she's partly doing it to legitimize her dedication to her
self-sufficiency.

And she gets even more dedicated once
she realizes he lied, which she reacts to by risking getting attacked
by the storm just to prove she can get through it unharmed and show
him his lying was in vain (and tried to punish him for it even more
when he still insists she shouldn't have come after the tornado,
when she leaves him at the site after he's seen his car is
destroyed).

Which she connects back to the
self-sufficiency once he gets home, except we learn it's actually
more than that - “you think you have the right to control me
because I'm carrying her protege”. I'd go so far as to say it has
more to do with her just believing in her self-sufficiency, it
connects reasons for her not wanting to have marriage or long-term
commitment – she's afraid it'll result in someone wanting to
control her or change her. With her being pregnant, the idea of
long-term commitment is a constant presence now, and it was something
she insisted she would never be involved with for all of her adult
life. No matter what the situation now or how much she's changed, it
is still frightening to have something you've fought against for so
long suddenly become a likelihood. Mindsets can change much more
easily than behaviors resulting from those mindsets, and the longer
the mindset has been in place, the more ingrained the behaviors are.
So she finds every chance to highlight Booth's overprotectiveness and
her own ability to be self-sufficient.

And, the final scene. He knows her, he
knows she's not going to let up, so he has two options: either stop
being overprotective, or give her a logically laid-out explanation as
to why he does this. Note “logically laid-out”, not “logical”,
because the level of his overprotectiveness is not “logical”, at
least in her eyes. But she needs to know he's not doing it because of
any fault of hers, as she's made it out to seem so far. It's not
because he doesn't trust her, because he doesn't think she can manage
on her own, because he wants to control her – it's that he feels
better protecting her and their child in the albeit small, minute
ways he can, because he won't always be able to be. Despite it being
a logically laid-out argument, she doesn't buy it as such, but again,
you can't really expect her to accept it on any level because she
still has that deeply-ingrained behavior in place. But when he points
out she has a little bit of crazy too, he is completely correct – I
mean, she risked being injured or killed in that storm just to prove
she could manage it despite Booth's lie. Yes, she says its because
she wanted to talk to the chasers and it made her think of things she
wouldn't have thought of otherwise, but also she could have simply
asked to arrange an interview after the storm, or even talked over
the phone later on. She too has her own delusions, in this case her
dedication to unnecessary levels of self-sufficiency, but unlike
Booth, the one still more understanding of the
emotional/psychological aspects of himself and their relationship
(after a bit of stubbornness and pushing it away, as always) despite
how much she's grown, she won't always be able to be as understanding
of them, especially while it is still happening and she uses her
rationality as the deflector.

Brennan didn't know a storm would be there-- no one can actually predict where a tornado will hit. Since Booth lied-- she had no idea of knowing that it was an at risk area. The moment she realized he lied-- she probably just took off after him thinking he was being as overprotective as in the morning.

I have to admit I don't think Booth is as emotionally mature. I actually think in some ways Brennan is more emotionally mature-- she doesn't make decisions based on emotions. She is slowly allowing herself to incorporate them into her decisions. But Booth's like a child-- he is impulsive with his emotions-- acting without thinking things through not caring about the consequences. Hence the gambler. Without Brennan to balance him out-- his life would be a disaster. Hence S6--- his relationship with Hannah was doomed to turn out no differently than, Rebecca, Cam, Tessa or Brennan. He was repeating the definition of insanity.

Search

I'm Leila. I like the show "Bones" a whole lot. And I think Booth and Brennan are one of the best and most complex tv couples ever. This is where I try to prove that. Some people say I'm optimistic. I say I'm logical.